Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Most Meritorious Player: 1995 Ballot

For 1995, each voter should rank the top 14 players from all leagues combined.

Balloting is scheduled to close at 4pm EDT on 3 August 2016.

Anyone can vote, even if you do not normally participate in Hall of Merit discussions. If you have never participated in an MMP election, just post a preliminary ballot in the discussion thread by 2 August 2016.

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

1) Greg Maddux - postseason run makes this a top season for any pitcher
2) Randy Johnson - 3rd best pitching season of the past 10 seasons after Maddux 1995 and 1994
3) Mike Piazza - not often a catcher takes my top position player spot
4) Barry Bonds - 3rd best bat, good glove
5) Tim Salmon - A little less bat than Barry
6) John Valentin - well rounded contributions but not a great baserunner
7) Jim Thome - 3B this season and not a bad fielder
8) Barry Larkin - better baserunner than Valentin but not as good in the field
9) Albert Belle - strong postseason hitting contributions move him up the list
10) Mark McGwire - Almost as much bat as Salmon
11) Craig Biggio - rates poorly with the glove or would rank higher
12) Frank Thomas - Best bat, poor fielder
13) Tom Glavine - postseason boosts him onto the ballot
14) Edgar Martinez - As much bat as Thomas but DH penalty hurts him

1. Greg Maddux, P - Maddux's 10 CGs, great post-season and historic WHIP and WPA numbers gave him the edge over Johnson, Valentin and Bonds
2. Randy Johnson, P - one of the greatest pitching seasons of all time
3. John Valentin, SS - Ripken-caliber defensive numbers are consistent with other seasons early in his career; he also nearly triple-slashed .300/.400/.500 as a SS
4. Barry Bonds, LF - still one of the all-around best players in the game
5. Albert Belle, LF - .690 SLG dwarfs everyone but McGwire
6. Edgar Martinez, DH - an all-time great hitting year (182 wRC+)
7. Reggie Sanders, RF - phenomenal hitting; solid baserunning and fielding, too
8. Chuck Knoblauch, 2B - Biggio and Knoblauch were the best 2B in baseball and it's not even close in 1995
9. Bernie Williams, CF - typically solid offense from Bernie, back when he could field his position well
10. Craig Biggio, 2B
11. Tim Salmon, RF
12. Mike Piazza, C
13. Mark McGwire, 1B - 183 wRC+ was higher than Edgar Martinez; .441 OBP; ISO over .400; worth more on offense than all but five players despite having 200 less plate appearances
14. Hideo Nomo, P - over 11K per 9, a feat only achieved 3 times prior to 1995 (Randy Johnson did it in '95, also)

Michael J. Binkley's anxiety closet Posted: July 30, 2016 at 09:29 PM (#5275422)
For some reason I can't reach the ballot thread as logged in at the moment, so DL or someone else, could you please transfer this to the ballot thread. Thank you.

1995 MMP final ballot:

My methodology: I use an average of bWAR, fWAR (using the average of FIP and RA-9 numbers for pitchers), gWAR, DanR WARP (substituting BP for pre 1893 and post-2005 years), and Win Shares (crudely adjusted to a WAR-like value) . For catchers post 1948, I use Max Marchi/BP game-calling numbers for defensive values. I also believe the DH penalty is too harsh, so I split the difference between DH replacement level and 1b replacement level.

For each player's average WAR (mWAR for Michael WAR, or Mengel (my last name) WAR or just My WAR)I then plug it into a DanR-style peak-rate salary estimator (the Sfrac for all pitchers is 1). I don't give an additional catcher bonus since most don't play a full seasons worth of games, and the missing games are already built into the rate part of the salary estimator (note: this hurts catchers like Bench and Berra who did tend to play full seasons since they played their "off" days at positions other than catcher). I do not include a post-season bonus except as a final tiebreaker.

Comments:
1. Did not use hitter WAR for pitchers on the preliminary ballot. The only pitcher much affected is Tom Glavine.
2. Had to tweak the NL numbers because of an issue with my replacement runs calculation.

Rest of the top 20:
15. John Valentin DRA defensive runs for Valentin is-5 rather than the +23 (from Baseball reference I believe) quoted by others. This is why the use of different stat sources gives a better picture of the stats.
16. Jeff Bagwell
17 Mo Vaughn
18. Dennis Martinez
19. Mark McGwire
20. Craig Biggio

An interesting year. Two pitchers at the top and only one other who is towards the bottom. No postseason credit but some small credit for playing for a Division-contender:
Final
1. Maddux-just amazing what he was able to do in 1994 & 1995 which were both hitter's years, 10 CGs, excellent W/L
2. Johnson-a semi-distant #2 but an amazing year--294 strikeouts, low ERA just not in comparison to Maddux, also a great W/L
3. Bonds-ho-hum another great year
4. Edgar Martinez-doubles, BA, and walks-machine
5. Belle-50 HRs & 50 doubles, biggest bat in potent Cleveland line up
6. Valentin-a forgotten great year, a big reason why Boston won the East
7. Sanders-career year for a poor man's Barry Bonds, along with Larkin big for Cincy
8. Salmon-best player on Angels heartbreaker
9. Piazza-catcher bonus but didn't play a ton of games
10.Thomas-I felt fielding and positional penalties may have been too severe
11.Biggio-good overall player
12.Larkin-great SB total & success rate which WAR may have over-rewarded, excellent overall regardless
13.Mussina-high IP in tough AL East
14.McGwire-low games played kept from being higher